NIW: "The Palisades Embrittlement Battle"

Entergy Nuclear's Palisades atomic reactor is located on the Lake Michigan shore in Covert, MI.Rosa Lin at Nuclear Intelligence Weekly (NIW) has written an article entitled "United States: The Palisades Embrittlement Battle" (reproduced here with permission from the publisher), about dueling appeals submitted to the full U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC).

Environmental intervenors, including Beyond Nuclear, have appealed an Atomic Safety and Licensing Board Panel's (ASLBP) rejection, on May 8th, of its contention against an Entergy Nuclear License Amendment Request (LAR) for regulatory relief regarding brittle fracture risk in Palisades' reactor pressure vessel (RPV) at colder temperatures. Entergy has just appealed the same ASLBP's granting of an evidentiary hearing, on June 18th, to the intervenors regarding an Entergy LAR for RPV ductile fracture risk at hotter temperatures.

NRC has recognized, on numerous occassions, that Palisades has the worst neutron radiation embrittled RPV in the U.S., but numerous other pressurized water reactors (including Point Beach, WI; Indian Point 3, NY; Diablo Canyon 1, CA; Beaver Valley 1, PA; and Davis-Besse, OH) are not far behind. Embrittled RPVs are at risk of pressurized thermal shock through-wall fracture, which would lead to core meltdown.

Lin quotes Beyond Nuclear, as well as Dave Lochbaum, Director of the Nuclear Safety Project at UCS:

Palisades "would not be allowed to operate if the standards applied to Yankee Rowe were applied" to it, said Dave Lochbaum of the Union of Concerned Scientists, referring to a plant shut down in 1992 due to embrittlement.